Federal Election 2019: Meet Reason Australia

Summary

Policies & Commentary

I reviewed Reason Australia back in November, when it was Fiona Patten’s Reason Party, so once again, I’ll just be reviewing their most recent adventures.  These sadly do not appear on their website, which means it’s time for a little Facebook stalking…

• Reason Australia is excited about drones that can plant trees!
• They link to an article by Dr Sarah Russell, a public health researcher and  Reason’s candidate for Cooper, on the need for better Aged Care policies.  Their policy sounds very comprehensive (much better than the bullet points you get on their actual website).  Cooper has also written articles on living with mental illness, on the need for more opinion pieces by women, and on aged care again.  She seems like a good egg, and if I were in Cooper, I’d probably vote for her.
• Reason Australia feels that the major parties are ignoring the housing crisis.
• We are introduced to Rachel Payne, candidate for Menzies whose campaign Facebook page suggests that she approves of ‘Tea Party Raves’ in aged care facilities, pill testing and climate change.  I am now trying to imagine my mother in law at a Tea Party Rave.  (And I have written that specifically so that when my husband reads this, he has to imagine it too.  I’m a great person to be married to!)
• Reason Australia is still hoping for consistent leglislation around sex work in Australia.
• And speaking of decriminalisation, it’s time we decriminalised drugs for personal use, too.
• They share a study from a pro-vaping site saying that vaping doesn’t confer a risk of cardiovascular disease.  Scientists in the comments get upset.
• They share an article (on Easter Sunday) saying that the evidence for a historical Jesus is weak.  Honestly, as a historian I find that super irritating, though I don’t intend to relitigate that here.  Suffice it to say that whether or not you believe that Jesus was the son of God, the consensus among historians of the era is that he did exist as a person, and I really wish that atheists would find a different argument.  (The comments thread on that one got pretty excited, too, and I wasn’t even there…)
• They are worried about online privacy.
• There is a typically amusing and delightful video by Fiona Patten explaining why they aren’t running in the senate, which is basically because they feel that with the Senate reform laws, small parties don’t really have a chance in the Upper House any more, and there’s no point wasting the money and time trying.  Someone needs to tell some of the other small parties this right now…
• They are annoyed about a lack of transparency in government, and fair enough too.  They also want funding reform.
• They definitely don’t like guns.
• They do like safe zones around abortion clinics, and they are very annoyed at people handing out flyers to cancer patients at PeterMac about ‘fearmongering and misleading’ flyers about euthanasia.  As if cancer patients don’t have enough on their plates.

And that’s about as far as I have time for right now, but I think it covers the main areas.  Reason is clearly still pro-legalisation, pro-personal freedom, and a wee bit anti-religion.  And apparently, into aged care reform.  I’m pretty excited about Sarah Russell, I must say.  They are only running in three seats, but you could definitely do worse.

Eurovision Theme Song as determined by me, very objectively